Tommy Carmellini knew how to search an apartment and he searched this one. He found absolutely nothing that shouldn’t be there.
Two hours later, discouraged and tired, he dropped his trousers and lowered himself onto Kent’s commode. Before he did so, however, he lifted the lid on the back and examined the workings. Looked precisely like a commode should. Then he felt behind the tank to ensure that nothing was taped to the back.
As he sat answering nature’s call, he picked up a magazine that Kent had arranged on a nearby stand. Flipped through the pages, looking to see if anything had been inserted. No.
A newspaper. He picked it up, shook it. Nothing fell out. He was about to put it back on the stand when he paused, looked again. The Financial Times, a week-old edition. Kent had it folded to the stock listings.
Idly Carmellini ran his eye down the listings. Column one, two…
Huh! There was a tiny spot of ink under the Vodafone listing, as if she rested the tip of her pen there for a moment.
He held the page up, scrutinized it carefully. Here was another spot, and another. Six in all.
Stocks. Investments. A portfolio. Well, even civil servants had portfolios these days. Hell, he had a little money in the market himself.
But he couldn’t recall seeing anything about her portfolio in the apartment. Not a monthly statement, a letter from her broker, nothing.
Odd.
There should be something, shouldn’t there?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Major Ma Chao and his three co-conspirators were standing in the back of the ready room when the commanding officer and his department heads came in. Someone called the people in the room to attention.
“We have orders,” the CO announced. “Governor Sun has directed us to bomb the rebels in the Bank of the Orient square in the Central District, and headquarters in Beijing has confirmed. We will launch four airplanes with four two-hundred-and-fifty-kilogram bombs each. Fortunately, the weather is excellent. We will coordinate the attack with a shelling by two naval vessels, putting maximum pressure on the rebels.”
In the silence that followed this announcement the television audio could be heard throughout the room. The pilots had watched Hu Chiang make his speech, had seen the York units and the happy, joyous crowd that filled the square. They had listened to Peter Po explain the significance of the revolution, why the overthrow of the Communists was of the gravest national importance.
Now this.
There was certainly much to think about, including the fact that no pilot in the squadron had ever dropped bombs from a J-11. Although the plane was a license-built copy of one of the world’s premier fighters, it had no all-weather attack capability; visual dive-bombing was the only option. Unfortunately the Beijing brass thought the risks of dive-bombing training too high, so it had been forbidden.
Major Ma turned sideways so his right side was partially hidden and drew his sidearm, a semiautomatic. He held it low, beside his leg.
“Sir,” Ma asked, “did you verify the governor’s identity? Agents provocateurs may be giving false orders.”
This comment was grossly insubordinate and the commanding officer treated it as such. “I am completely satisfied that the governor issued these orders and that headquarters concurred,” he said, daring anyone to contradict his statement. “The time has come to separate the patriots from the traitors,” he added ominously. “I intend to follow orders, to bomb the rebels as directed by the government. Who will fly with me?”
The senior officers raised their hands, but not a single junior.
“You traitors are under arrest,” the commanding officer snarled. “Now clear the room.”
Ma Chao raised his pistol, pointed it at the CO. “It is you who are under arrest, Colonel. Drop your sidearm.”
The CO was a true fighter pilot. He grinned broadly, then said, “We thought something like this might happen, Ma Chao, but we never suspected you. Some of these other little dicks, yes, but you surprise me. Too bad.” He raised his voice. “Come in, Sergeant, come in,” he called and gestured through the open door to people waiting in the hallway.
Three senior noncommissioned officers walked in. They were carrying assault rifles in the ready position.
The CO gestured toward the rear of the room. “Major Ma and those junior officers. Lock them up until we can interrogate them and find how far the rot has spread.”
The NCOs pointed their rifles at Ma.
This was it! Now or never. Use your best judgment, Wu had said.
Ma steadied the front sight of his automatic and pulled the trigger. The bullet knocked the CO down.
“Anyone else?” Ma said, looking around.
The senior NCO grinned at Ma, then pointed his rifle at the department heads. “Your pistols, please. You are under arrest.”
The lieutenant beside Ma couldn’t contain himself. “I thought the sergeant was going to shoot you!”
Ma Chao thought the sergeant was on his side. He said he was last week, yet every week the earth turns seven times. Ma breathed a sigh of relief and walked toward the front of the room to see how badly the CO was hurt and to take charge.
When the trucks filled with troops left the PLA base, Lin Pe telephoned a number she had memorized. She recognized the voice that answered, a nice young girl who attended Hong Kong University. “Seven trucks have left the base.”
Five minutes later Lin Pe called again. “Ten trucks filled with troops. They drove away through Shatin.”
“Very good. Thank you for the report. We would like you to go back to Nathan Road and walk along it. Report any strong points that you see under construction.”
Lin Pe said good-bye to the grocer, who had let her use his restroom, and walked through Shatin toward the bus stop. Her bag was heavy and she was tired, so she made slow progress.
Her son, Wu, had told her of the dangers of spying on the PLA. “They will shoot you if they catch you talking about them on the cell phone. They may arrest you because they are worried. They will be frightened, fearful men, and very dangerous.”
“I understand,” she replied.
“They may beat you to death trying to make you talk. They may kill you regardless of what you say.”
“I understand,” she had repeated.
“You do not have to do this,” Wu told her.
“Someone has to.”
“Ah…” he said, and dropped the subject.
Where in the world could Kerry Kent hide the information about her stock portfolio? Tommy Carmellini stood in the middle of Kent’s kitchen thinking about that problem. He could have sworn he had searched everything there was to search, peered in every cubbyhole and cranny, pried loose every baseboard, looked in all the vents…
The pots and pans were piled carefully against one wall. He had even peeled up the paper she had used to line her shelves.
Her attaché case wasn’t here. Must be at the consulate.
The notebook… a spiral notebook had lain on her bedroom table. He had flipped through it, but…
He found it again, sat down in the middle of the bathroom floor in the only open space and went through it carefully. Halfway through the notebook, there it was. A page of multiplication problems, seven in all, and a column where she added the seven answers together. She hid it in plain sight.
He compared the numbers in the problems to the stock listings in The Financial Times. Okay, this stock closed at 74½, and here was the problem, 74.5 × 5400. Answer, 402,300.
He checked every problem. The correlation with the six stocks highlighted with a tiny spot of ink was perfect. One stock he couldn’t find; only six were marked.
The total… £1,632,430.